ALL THE ECHOES I CAN SEE
Jack is shocked that he's not thought of this before now. Of course, with all the alien devices he's seen and catalogued over his long career with Torchwood, he supposes one might not stand out, even if it's exactly what he's been needing most.
Since losing everything he cared about fighting the 456 and the government, he's been running around the universe with his vortex manipulator, fixed courtesy of Professor River Song- every time traveler knows Professor Song- in exchange for loaning it to UNIT at a specified time. It was while dropping it off that he got roped into helping them with the Cardiff archives.
After the Hub was destroyed, turned into a smoking hole in the middle of Cardiff, it was cordoned off and mostly ignored, forgotten in the aftermath of the alien invasion that had left the world reeling and the various governments and agencies struggling to recover. Then the so-called Miracle distracted everyone, so that when UNIT finally remembered that there was a pile of alien artifacts under the former Plass, there was nothing left of Mainframe or Ianto's archive system. Only Jack, who had identified most of the artifacts in the first place, could help them catalogue them.
So it's thanks to UNIT that he has it now: the Quantum Transducer they took from Bernie Harris, that could show echoes of emotional events. That could show him Ianto Jones.
It's been four linear years since Ianto died, but Jack's hopped around enough that it's more like ten for him. And it still hurts every damn day. Every morning when he wakes up, every time he smells coffee, every time he comes back from a death with no one there to hold him. The phrase empty without him may seem overly dramatic, but Jack has always been inclined to drama, and it's exactly how he feels. He can forget briefly with a job or a lover, but Jack's mind and heart always return to Ianto.
"And I wouldn't miss that for the world."
And god, Ianto can't help but lean into Jack and kiss him. They never talk about what they are to each other, but from Jack, this is as good as an outright declaration of love. He pulls Jack up and shoves him back onto the desk, advancing as Jack chuckles. Ianto wants to chase the laughter away with moans, with gasping, with please and more and harder. He puts a knee on the desk and crushes his mouth to Jack's, grinding against him. It's going to be a very long, very good night.
The Hub is gone, the Plass rebuilt over the collapsed caverns and tunnels, but the impressions are still there where Jack can use the transducer to see them. Countless memories, even some of his own.
"21st century, Jack. Everything's gonna change. And we're not ready."
A gunshot, then nothing.
But for all that Torchwood had been a difficult life, there were good times, valued all the more for the contrast with tragedy and drudgery. Jack misses this more than he can express, yet he wouldn't go back if it was offered. What made Torchwood home was the people, and they're all dead. All but Gwen Cooper, who has defied all expectation and transitioned to a more traditional life. Gwen was always more grounded, less broken than the rest of them. He'd thought that Torchwood would shatter her too, but Rhys kept her steady. The others, though, they had nothing but Torchwood. And each other, for whatever that was worth.
Owen shoots a spitball at him across the conference table. "Speak for yourself, Jones. I've no interest in Jack's history with the Prexueh. It's disgusting the way he looks at every alien as if it's an all-you-can-shag buffet."
Disgusting isn't the word Ianto would use. Intriguing maybe, but nothing to do with Jack is ever disgusting, not to Ianto. He flicks the spitball off his tie and returns volley with a wad of bread, which bounces off Owen's ear to land in the tub of marinara, leaving splatters of tomato on the table that Ianto will have to clean up later.
"Don't be a prude. Anyway, it's research. You have your hands in alien guts all the time, what's the difference?"
"The difference is that I don't have my hands up their-"
"OI!"
"Maybe you should try it, Owen," Jack calls from the door. "I hear you're striking out lately."
"Fuck off, Harkness. Not all of us have a shaggable secretary."
"Administrative assistant," Ianto reminds him, secretly pleased. Owen complimented him, in an extremely backhanded sort of way. More than that, he treated Ianto exactly as he would any member of the team. It's the first time Ianto feels like he's really a part of Torchwood Three.
It's one of the things Jack loved most about Ianto Jones: his acceptance of Jack's past. Ianto understood, as few others ever did, that Jack was never comparing one lover to another, that his frequent interjections of 'Ah, the acrobat twins' and 'so zir tentacles were all lubed up, and we had a couple of hours before the decontamination protocols completed' didn't mean he was unsatisfied, they were just Jack trying to hold on to his history over a very long lifetime; stories repeated are stories remembered. It is also a protective gambit- the Jack Harkness Show, meant to make the world think he is shallow and flighty. Ianto saw the real Jack, his fear and his vulnerability, and didn't begrudge him the façade. Ianto also knew that Jack's constant flirting was a part of this and shrugged it off, except… except when it was more than flirting. Except when it was Gwen.
Anger and hurt knot in his gut as Ianto leaves the Hub after Gwen threw off Jack's ultimatum. He knows he should let this go like he does with everything else, but this is different. This isn't a throwaway come-on. Since the beginning, Jack has favoured Gwen Cooper, has longed for her. He may think he's hiding it, that Ianto doesn't know, but Ianto sees everything that happens in his Hub, not that he'll ever mention it. Looking the other way is just another part of loving Jack. So Ianto gives the man his space, and tomorrow he'll let Jack fuck him over Gwen's desk, and they'll be just fine. Sort of.
Jack knew, even then, but he didn't do anything about it. He had taken shameless advantage of Ianto's acceptance right up until the day after Gwen's wedding when Ianto finally confronted him. That vision, when he finally finds it (out on the Quay, with a surge of possessiveness, Ianto shoves Jack against the railing and forces him to choose. Jack doesn't hesitate for a moment) will stay with Jack until the stars burn to ash.
Jack goes through a delirious six weeks before he realizes the problem: each event can be seen only once. There are a finite number of moments he can experience with the transducer, just as there had been with actual moments with Ianto. He had squandered the later, he realizes now, but he will ration the former carefully. There's more to see than just the moments they shared, of course. Ianto was twenty-six years old when he died, and all of his most emotional moments are recorded for Jack to see. And there are also other people's experiences featuring Ianto, amidst all the bits and pieces of lives that don't involve Ianto at all that Jack is forced to live through to find what he wants. He goes to the other places from Ianto's life, hoping to find more. After a time, Jack learns to focus, to sift through the extraneous impressions and hone in on what he wants most: Ianto Jones.
Ianto is blushing. He doesn't know what he did to catch Lisa's eye, but tonight he feels like the luckiest man on earth. She's gorgeous, smart, kind, and way out of his league. She can have any man she wants, and what she wants, incomprehensibly, is Ianto.
Their date was brilliant. Live music at a little club followed by a stroll along the Thames. It was their second date, the first full of awkwardness and stammering, and tonight he had been brave enough to reach out and take her hand as they walked. She squeezed it gently and smiled without looking, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Now they're standing in front of her building and Ianto is trying to screw his courage to kiss her.
He does. Her lips are soft, warm and sweet. Perfect. Ianto is thinking he might die happily in this moment when Lisa wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him close, pressing the full length of his body against hers.
"I thought you'd never make a move," she's murmuring, breath hot against his mouth. "I was beginning to wonder if you were really interested in me at all. I thought I might have to seduce you."
"Seduce away, I'm yours to do with as you will."
She pulls away to dig in her purse for her keys. "Come up to mine, then."
When Ianto leaves after coffee and stale toast the next morning, he knows it's love.
The thing about the transducer is that it's more than just a vision, it's an experience. Jack can feel Ianto's nervousness with the stopwatch proposition, and the flare of relief and victory when Jack accepts. He's surprised by a flush of pride and pleasure every time Jack relies on him. Jack finally comes to understand Ianto's obsession with coffee (there are dozens of coffee-related moments to be found), the meticulous process, the rhythm of it, and the satisfaction of a well-crafted brew. On a whim, Jack tracks down an espresso machine just like the one that had been in the Hub and learns to use it based purely on the memories the transducer shows him. Eventually, he is able to recreate Ianto's coffee exactly. It eases his heart a little.
"Ianto, would you work some coffee magic?"
Ianto makes coffee, hands shaking, wanting nothing more than to return to Lisa and Tanizaki, but knowing that to disappear would be suspicious. The power flicker is both welcome and concerning; he's given opportunity to get away from the central Hub, but there are very few harmless explanations for the sort of power draw they're experiencing. He goes to investigate, fear and hope warring in his mind. And from there, of course, it all goes straight to hell.
There are some thing Jack would rather not see, but he seeks them out anyway. There was more to Ianto than his bright, shining moments, and Jack would be doing him a disservice to pretend otherwise. After experiencing the events surrounding Lisa's final demise, he cries for days from the guilt of what he did to Ianto, then seeks out the battle of Canary Wharf in penance. There, he's caught up in a maelstrom of every victim. He sees Jackie Tyler and the Doctor. He sees Rose.
Rose is shaking in fear, but that's nothing new. "We're all contaminated. We'll get pulled in."
The Doctor sends her away. Tries to, anyway, but she's never let him push her around before, and she won't now. She regrets this as she's pulled to the void, but at least she can hear the anguish in the Doctor's voice as he calls her name. Then Pete appears and-
The vision is gone. Jack knows what happened next, but the transducer can only show events from this dimension. And there are enough that he is caught up for days, trapped in the last moments of seven hundred ninety six victims, including Lisa Hallett; as he feels her/himself dying, he knows at last that he spoke the truth when he told Ianto there was no hope for her. Not for any of them. There's nothing at the site of the former Torchwood London but anguish, every other memory is gone. Ianto's first day, his first sight of Lisa, all wiped out by the horror of the invasion and slaughter.
Back in Cardiff, seeking whatever shards of Ianto are left, Jack visits all the businesses Ianto frequented in the course of his job, and in the process learns more about Torchwood and his team than he ever knew. The cleaners: Ianto was the first to know about Owen and Gwen, from the stains on their clothing. The bakery: Tosh preferred chocolate croissants to doughnuts, but mini quiches to either. The chemist: Owen was having less sex than he claimed, but having Torchwood buy his condoms. The coffee shop: Ianto bought a pound of decaf and a congratulations mug a full week before Gwen discovered she was pregnant. The police station: Everyone got parking tickets. All the time. Aldi: Myfanwy ate a lot of chocolate and wouldn't accept the cheap stuff.
Triumph. Excitement. Desire. Guilt. There's an unconscious pterosaur on the ground nearby and Ianto hasn't felt so alive since he nearly died at Canary Wharf. Captain Harkness's chin tilts up, whether in offering or challenge, Ianto can't tell. He wants to kiss him. Wants to take what's being offered, to indulge in the forgetfulness of the body, but he can't.
"I should go."
The job offer and the compliment barely register except to remind him that he's betraying them all, but Ianto can't turn back now. There's work to do.
As hard as it is to watch, to feel Ianto's conflict over their earliest encounters, Jack is relieved. Ianto was genuinely attracted to him. The sex, when it happened, was truly consensual (and even hotter from the other side.) Jack had wondered, but never asked. What would he have done with the answer, after all?
He's rationing himself now. As Jack goes on, strip-mining every location he can think of, there are fewer and fewer good memories to be found, especially when he returns to Ianto's childhood home.
He's only little, and his father is looming over him. He's terrified. He didn't mean to be naughty, but it seems that everything he does these days gets him in trouble. His father is gentle with his mam, playful with his sister, and reserves his anger for Ianto, who is the reason his mam is the way she is, as his father endlessly reminds him. Today he's not just in trouble for that, he also made the mistake not covering the bruises that ring his arms. It's his fault, his father says, for not remembering to wear long sleeves. It's for his own good, his father says, because Ianto wouldn't want everyone to know what a terrible child he is. From now on, his father says, it will have to be the belt since no one will see. Ianto stands and waits, quivering, while his father goes to fetch it.
But even Ianto's painful experiences aren't without end. Finally there comes a time when he's gleaned every trace of Ianto, strip mined every momentary impression. Ianto is truly lost to him now, yet Jack knows him better than ever, and loves him even more. In his search for Ianto, he's been a million people, felt their minds, their thoughts, their emotions, and he's never felt another who shone as brightly as his Ianto.
The idea comes to him only partially formed, as they always do. Still, Ianto knows from long experience that his intuition will lead him exactly where he needs to go if he lets it.
"What about comets?" he asks.
Gwen, Owen, and Tosh turn to him as if they'd forgotten he is there, but Jack seems to understand that Ianto needs to talk through an idea. "What about them?" he prompts.
"1910 and 1986 were both comet years. Halley's." Ianto wedges himself between Gwen and Tosh and scans the list of years shown. "The Talendarians aren't coming every ten years and arriving late or early, they're coming with comets. It's just coincidence that comets pass close about once a decade."
Yes, Ianto's on to something. He's gaining momentum, and he knows this is the answer. He pokes the monitor where 1957 is displayed. "Arend-Roland." 1975. "West." Ianto doesn't even know how he knows these things. At some point he must have read a book about comets, and now these names and dates are just a part of him. "Skjellerup-Maristany, Southern, Ikeya-Seki." He points at 1927, 1947, and 1965. He waves at the beginning of the list. "These first two don't have names, they just called them the Great Comets of 1882 and 1901."
"What about 1996," Gwen asks. "The big comet of the '90s was Hale-Bopp in 1997. The Talendarians had already been and gone."
"There was another one that passed much closer in 1996, only no one remembers it because there was no cult claiming the apocalypse. And there's one in the sky now."
Tosh is typing one-handed while she gestures with the other. "Yes, it matches! The timing of the signal and the direction and everything! But why?"
Ianto rolls his eyes at her. Tosh always wants to know reasons, and Ianto is a pragmatist. "It doesn't matter why or how," he says with a smirk, "so long as we know that they do so that we can watch for them."
Jack is looking at him proudly, but it's Owen who says," And now we can just monitor the amateur sky-watch websites for mentions of comets and let the nerds do our job for us. Well done."
It's all the recognition he'll ever get from the team. Tomorrow they'll go back to thinking of him as the office boy, but the gleam in Jack's eye promises a reward after everyone else leaves, and that's the best part of being brilliant.
Brilliant, and so much more. Intuitive, empathetic, kind; there had been a number of visits to Flat Holm that Jack hadn't know about, beginning during the time Jack was with the Doctor. Ianto took it on as he did every aspect of Torchwood. Ianto was driven. Whether trying to save his girlfriend, demanding commitment, or dropping a concrete-encased Jack over a cliff, Ianto was focused and relentless. He was haunted, feeling every life lost as a personal failure. Above all else, Ianto Jones was loyal. Devoted in every way to Captain Jack Harkness. And that is the most painful thing of all.
Ianto's dying, he can feel it. It's not as heroic a death as Ianto had hoped for, but at least it's not a toaster mishap. And Jack is with him, so there's that. Gods, poor Jack. Ianto can't think about himself now; it will all be over for him soon, but Jack- this will gut him. More than dying, Ianto hates what it will do to Jack. And since he's only got this one chance left, he's going to say what he's been feeling for months. "I love you."
When Jack says 'Don't' it only hurts for a second, then Jack is begging him to stay, which he would if it were his choice, but things are starting to fade. He feels cold. Just this once, he'll ask Jack for reassurance.
"Hey. It was good, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Don't forget me."
"Never could."
"A thousand years time you won't remember me."
Jack sounds so far away now. "Yes, I will. I promise. I will. Ianto. Ianto? Don't go. Don't leave me, please. Please don't."
As Ianto slips into the darkness, the last thing he feels is the press of Jack's lips against his own.
But now there's nothing left. Everything Ianto was is now a part of Jack; there will be no new memories, nothing else to see. Jack has left Earth for a planet where he won't be reminded of pale blue eyes, blinding intelligence, and fierce loyalty. He's retrieved his Vortex Manipulator from UNIT and is now sitting in a café in the marketplace on Barcelona (the planet not the city, and isn't that joke starting to get a bit overused?) staring at the transducer. It's grubby, battered from years of service, and useless to him now. He sighs, reaching for his hypervodka cosmopolitan. His sleeve catches on the corner of the table. He jerks free and knocks the transducer, which tips off the table. When he catches it, he presses the button, and the café dissolves into a vision of itself in another time.
Jack grins, laughing. It's so good to laugh again. He could watch the man across the table forever.
"Then he said, 'I suppose the Tardis won't mind if you stay in Jack's room until we find him, just don't look in the drawers if you value your sanity,' as if I don't know perfectly well the sort of things you like to get up to."
Jack reaches his hand across the table. Ianto takes it. "I can't tell you how happy I am to have you back," Jack says, throat tight with emotion. "Nothing was ever the same without you."
"You didn't think a little thing like death would keep me from you?" Ianto's eyes crinkle at the corner. He doesn't look the way he looked at Thames House. He looks younger somehow. Not as young as when Jack first met him, but still not quite the age Jack expects him to be. When he tries to pinpoint it, he guesses Ianto is about the age he was when Jack came back from his trip with the Doctor. He's breathtaking.
"How," he asks.
Ianto shrugs. "Does it matter? The Doctor thinks maybe it was you reliving my life with the transducer, something about the vortex energy, all that rubbish. He babbles a lot, you know. You should have heard him when he found me, all 'but you're impossible!' and 'what have you done, my boy?' The thing is, I'm here, and it appears I will be for some time."
The Doctor's right- it's impossible and mad and brilliant maybe the most wondrous thing he's ever see. Jack's heart, splintered and dull, is whole again.
The vision fades; Jack is left gasping, with tears streaming down his cheeks. How-? Ianto has never been here, never met the Doctor in person, never been on the Tardis. This is a thing that hasn't happened, yet Ianto is there. Hope blossoms. He orders another drink- coffee this time; Jack will wait right here in this café for as long as it takes.
Author's Note: Remember how I accidently tripped and fell into angst with Gifts? Consider this an apology. The incomparable GMariam gave it a quick look-over, but it is un-betad, and all mistakes belong to the BBC, RTD, and... what? Wrong disclaimer? No, I don't think so.